DEVCHAND TOTARAM KIRANGE Vs. GHANASHYAM SAKHARAM CHAVDHARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two first appeals have very similar subject-matters and have been heard together as the two suits were tried together in the Court below. They turn on the constitution of the leva patidar caste and its government. The leva patidars were migrants from Gujerat to the north-east of the Khandesh district in the Yaval taluka and some of the caste have gone beyond and into adjacent villages in the Nizam's dominions and Berar. The headquarters of the caste are at Padalsa and there the kutumbnayaks, or representatives of the leading families, reside. These by turn are leaders of the caste, and summon the caste panchayat and also issue its decisions. A panchayat is convened by sending a summons in the form of a notice, in a book kept for the purpose, by messengers from village to village, till all those in which leva patidars are living have been served. The messenger takes the book to the leading man of each village and he, and sometimes other leading men as well, sign it in token of acknowledgment, and, it is then these persons duty to communicate the notice of the meeting to their fellow villagers.

(2.) The point we are concerned with is in reality a caste question. The bulk of the leva patidar caste are ordinary Hindus under Brahminical guidance : but the caste also includes many sects, or special cults. The one in question here is that of the Satpanth, which expression means the " true faith ". This cult is said to have been founded in the fifteenth century by a Muhammadan saint named Imamshah. He performed a miracle, which had the effect of converting a certain number of leva patidars to his teaching, and the cult has flourished ever since:. Its headquarters are near Ahmedabad where the saint was buried, and his tomb is in charge of his descendants, described in the evidence as the " Syeds ". A Hindu "Kaka" or religious head of the sect also lives at Pirana and serves his co-religionists. A second seat of Satpanth is at a place called Bahadurpur. This was founded by a grandson of Imamshah and is called the new Satpanth. Except for there being no Hindu teacher, it is as far as we can gather, a portion of the main Satpanthi cult. Sat-panthis are not born into the cult, but become so by initiation and the cult has some scriptures arid also certain rites which are described in the evidence, and a comprehensive account of the cult and its history is also to be found in the Ahmedabad District Gazetteer.

(3.) The main question now agitating the leva patidar caste is one which we are not competent to decide. It is whether this cult is within the Vedic ( religion, or not ?